Menu

A little bit of everything, for the hardcore and the casual

No more pre-order regret in Steam

During the last years the industry has had a pre-order fever, with many games offering exclusive content for players who purchased the game before its release (and before the reviews appeared).

That bonus material can take many forms: a multiplayer upgrade, extra challenges, an additional piece of story or simply new skins (the worst kind, in my opinion). Today you can pre-order games that don’t even exist!

However, sometimes a fan pre-orders a game just to regret later. It could happen for many reasons: the game previews look terrible, the anxiety goes away or the promised bonus content is modified, for example. As pre-orders are becoming a trend among publishers, also is asking for a refund among consumers.

In response to that, now Steam lets you get a refund on your pre-order smoothly, without the need of opening a support ticket with Valve.The refund puts the money back in your Steam Wallet, so you can make the same mistake with another game.

Its competitor GOG’s refund policy, in turn, extends to 14 days after getting the game in case you just changed your mind and to 30 for technical issues.

In my case, I only pre-order a game when it comes with extraordinary additional content, as when buying The Bureau: XCOM Declassified in Steam got me all the previous XCOM installments, along with Spec Ops: The Line. As a matter of fact, I ended up playing more the other games than The Bureau… A considerable price discount can also help.